From a column I wrote last week:

You’re just going to have to get used to Mike Singletary barking at you on that TV screen because he’s not going anywhere, anytime soon.

After the 49ers dropped the New York Jets, one week after downing the Buffalo Bills, there’s a distinct flavor of football being formed in the San Francisco Peninsula. It’s an unmistakable change from the random week-to-week strategy that was offensive oriented, unorganized and worse yet, a losing culture.

Now, with Singletary playing captain, Shaun Hill starring as first mate and Vernon Davis being a good sailor, there’s a lot of positives to take from a tragic 2008 season.

Like pheromones, the Yorks will unknowingly, or rather ignorantly, enjoy the plunders of these non-essential, late-season wins. They’ll look at the few wins they pick up and see justification for sacking Mike Nolan, justification for benching J.T. O’Sullivan, and justification for not going after another quarterback last offseason, and probably this upcoming one.

Singletary deserves the credit for bringing discipline. He’s a pretty stern dude who has reinvigorated a defense that was not playing up to par. Holding Buffalo to three points showed that and holding the Jets (who had just beat the previously undefeated Tennessee Titans) to 14 proved that. It’s very satisfying to see the defense play so well when they’re supposed to, all the while understanding that you can’t expect that performance every week.

To read the full column, go to TheUnion.com.

UPDATED: So the 49ers took a loss to the Dolphins this last weekend and I couldn’t help but stew about that. It wasn’t like there was something magnificent about what the Dolphins did, it was more about how magnificently anemic the 49ers offense was. They just couldn’t get the plays when they needed ‘em. I don’t think all of the blame should be on the quarterback in this scenario. There’s a lot of fault laying around that offensive line and the lack of running plays called.

The question is, if the 49ers are going to lose to the Dolphins, when they can clearly win the game, will they lose to the Bengals if they played today? I mean, this is the low of the low. Can they even beat the Raiders.